If you have read my ‘New Chapter’ blog, you’ll know that my mission for NTL has changed ever so slightly (and if you haven’t read it, you can read it here). I find that we focus too much, at least I do, on the grand adventures that take us out of our way, rather than the small adventures that we encounter in our day-to-day lives. In an effort to remedy that, I’ve been going over this blog to try to get a look at my own big picture, and I realize that I’ve been missing out on a BIG part of my life.

I will be the first to admit that I do not like the cold. Unfortunately, I live in a very cold state. Also, a lot of my family and friends live here, and while I hate the cold, I love them, so it looks like I’ll be staying in-state for at least a little while longer. One thing, however, that keeps my spirits high during the cold months, is living in a cool city.

Hello everyone! I haven’t written in a while, but I’ve decided to come out of my hiatus and share some of the awesome things that I’ve been doing. This summer has been FULL of traveling to some really amazing places, and I can’t wait to share it with you guys. In fact, the early part of my summer was so full of traveling and adventuring that I’m just now getting around to organizing everything so that I can write about it and share it with you. In the meantime, I thought now would be an opportune time to finish up the Virginia Beach posts that I started so long ago.

Virginia Beach is an incredibly fun vacation destination. There is always something happening, and usually for free! I was amazed at how many things were open to the public for free. I expected to pay through the roof for everything that I wanted to do, and I thought that most of my free time would go toward swimming and relaxing by the ocean (which was never a disappointment), but that wasn’t the case at all. I spent my days finding free things to do, and my evenings on the ocean.

I’ve got a big cross-country trip coming up in about two weeks (which you may have read about here) that I’m really excited about. For cost saving purposes, the group that I’m going with will be splitting up and staying with host homes almost every night of our 15-day trip. It’s no secret that housing can be one of the most costly expenses while on vacation, and staying at host homes, or trying programs like couchsurfing, are great options.